India’s only monument to find a spot among the seven wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal, has failed to find a mention in the Uttar Pradesh government’s tourism booklet, raising eyebrows.
UP Health Minister and official BJP spokesperson, Siddharth Nath Singh, however, told NDTV that “there has been some miscommunication which has undermined the Taj Mahal.”
The booklet, called ‘Uttar Pradesh Paryatan – Apaar Sambhavnayen’, was released on World Tourism Day.
The booklet, which was released by state Tourism Minister Rita Bahuguna to mark the six-month anniversary of Yogi Adityanath’s government winning the elections in Uttar Pradesh. It lists various destinations, including the temple where Adityanath is the head priest, as well as a tour of monuments central to the Ramayana, Scroll reported.
According to News18, the booklet includes the Ganga Aarti of Varanasi, Gorakhpur’s Gorakh Peeth, Mathura-Vrindavan, Ayodhya, among other religious places. The booklet also includes Fatehpur Sikri.
“The booklet was released only for the purposes of a press conference and is not a guide to UP's tourism spots. It mentions new and upcoming projects of the UP Tourism department, and new focus areas,” NDTV also quoted Awanish Awasthi, Principal Secretary & Director General of the UP Tourism department as saying.
“There are many ongoing projects of the UP tourism at the Taj Mahal -- a parking project, a Taj-Agra fort linkage project and a development project, among others,” Awasthi added.
This, however, isn’t the first time that the Yogi Adityanath government has come under fire for comments about the Taj Mahal. In June this year, a Telegraph report quoted Adityanath saying that “foreign dignitaries visiting the country used to be gifted replicas of the Taj Mahal and other minarets which did not reflect Indian culture.” Foreign dignitaries visiting India are given a copy of the Ramayana or the Bhagawad Gita after Modi came to power, he added.